--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "sjuler" <sjuler@...> wrote:
> Konrad, what about those Norse dialects that were not in any way
written down on paper? What did Norse spoken in Northern Sweden
sound like, for example? Of course, we don't know. My point here is
that a statement like "Fortunately, West Norse was the most
conservative branch, often markedly so." is based only on the
written records.

True, but written records begin to exist in every Scandinavian land
with the establishment of the Catholic church. The dawn of writing
on skin and other book-type materials is roughly contemporary, even
if not exactly contemporary. The oldest known book in any language
of Sweden is Vest-Gautalög/West-Gøtalagh. It is thought to be from
slightly after 1200 - in other words, very old. The character of the
law is perhaps the oldest of any - in fact, it sounds almost like it
was written down strait from oral tradition, singing in alliteration
and other mnemonic devices. The language is also quite beautiful. It
is not, however, as old in character (morphology and phonology) as
contemorary Norwegian or Icelandic manuscripts. While the difference
is not very great, it is noticable and there appears to be a certain
consensus on this point among scholars. As we both know, Sweden had
several very closely-related languages, while Norway had essentially
only one. This can be shown concretely simply by comparing lawbooks
from many parts of Norway, Sweden and Denmark. While it is true that
not all Swedish dialects were well-recorded, there is not much basis
to assume that a less-recorded dialect like Nordlandic would differ
greatly in antiquity or character from its immeadiate neighbor, like
Upplandic, which is reasonably well-recorded. Still, there are some
undeniable archaisms in Runic Swedish which are not found in any of
West Norse areas after 900. A good example is R, which disappeared
from West Norse completely around 900. Excepting its runic material,
which is meagre, Gutnish went unrecorded until around 1300, at least
as far as we can tell (many 'Catholic' books were 'accidently' lost
by the new authorities ;) Still, it rivals contemporary Icelandic in
nearly every way with regard to antiquity. I have no doubt that the
Gutnish of 1100 was at least as archaic as the oldest contemporary
West Norse, in some ways even more so. However, Gutnish was isolated
island-speak, much like Faroese and Icelandic were later to become -
the island-speak of the east. I suspect that every scholar who has
looked into these matters would agree that the Gutnish is truely the
most archaic branch of East Norse, at least as far as records reach.
Interestingly enough, it matches and confirms huge areas in the West
Norse branch which otherwise differ in the other recorded East Norse
braches, despite its often radically differing phonology - no small
evidence for the archaic character of West Norse. Also, common sense
tells us that Western and Northern Norway were, along with Nordland
in Sweden, perhaps the most isolated areas of Scandinavia until and
into the Viking Age, when locations like Faroese and Iceland would
would begin to rival and eventually surpass the most isolated parts
of Norway in linguistic archaisms. This seems perfectly natural and
rather geographic. It seems natural to conclude, for instance, that
the archaic character of the oldest Icelandic and Faroese has a lot
to do with the original homeland of the earliest settlers. If Norway
had what was, on the balance, the oldest living Scandinavian tongue
in its isolated western regions, then Faroe-Islanders and Icelanders
had exactly the right linguistic-starting point to end up speaking a
more archaic language. Also, the norse linguistic uniformity of the
early settlers of Faroes and Iceland helped prevent the breakdown of
the language. No East Norse-related innovations (or archaisms) were
admitted to these languages until hundreds of years later. There are
scholars who would relate West Norse linguistic archaisms solely to
the earlier dawn of writing in the west, but I would disagree. In my
opinion, the writing had very little impact on linguistic antiquity
at this early stage. People simply spoke the way they did. The usual
culprit is the Erkibiskupsstóll at Niðaróss in Þrándheimr. This is,
no doubt, were writing was first employed in Scandinavia. This seems
to be the emerging scholarly consensus. By 'writing' here I mean the
creation of nordic-language books. Iceland and the Faroes fell under
this Erkibiskupsstóll, while each had its own bishop (later two for
Iceland). Icelanders and Faroe-Islander experienced early literacy,
almost from the dawn of Catholicism due in large measure to the very
strong monastic and clerical influence exterted from this bishopric,
turning their own cloisters into centers of haliographic writing. In
Iceland, however, the sons of the aristocracy broke into the growing
tradition of writing and turned it to their own ends, creating a new
literate on native nordic themes, and not always churchly ones - in
no small measure related to native poetic genius and a deep interest
in their own origins and history, as well as to the generally weaker
hold of church doctrine. Remarkably, the much more church-oriented
Norwegian aristocracy were receptive in large measure to this kind
of nordic learning and poetry, at least in part. This was no small
relief, for it meant opportunities for Icelandic and Faroese writers
and poets in Norway, a larger land where the same language was also
spoken. Personally, I think that this is all that was needed to help
turn, say, Icelandic monastary X into a nordic culture factory: just
a few sharp cats with time on their hands, native poetic genius and
the opportunity to sell it abroad. No doubt, it also helped that the
folks most knowledgable about nordic culture, history and beliefs
were merely muzzled and punished at the conversion and not slaughted
like sheep, as their cousins in Norway were, for instance. In Sweden
they were slaughted, too - just read Eiríks Saga ;)

> POerhaps Northern SCandinavians still spoke Viking age Norse in
Medieval times. We don't know, and therefore one should restrict
oneself to a statement like "Fortunately, West Norse was the most
conservative branch amongst the known Norse dialects, often markedly
so."

Hmmm...I doubt anybody spoke Viking Age norse in medieaval times. My
accessment of general linguistic antiquity is, I believe, standard,
if I am not mistaken. I think most scholars would agree that, say,
the Icelander Ari Fróði could speak to a West Norse viking with very
little difficulty at all, and I agree. The changes were so precious
few at that point.,.vowel harmony, a sound here and there, some new
latin/hebrew vocab at church...not much.

> BTW, since Icelandic did preserve vocabulary, grammar etc in an
almost uncanny way, but did not preserve stuff like pitch accent,
short and over-long syllable lengths and nasal vowels, it may be
interesting to listen to a dialect that did. Here are some sound
samples:
>
> http://www.unilang2.org/wiki2/wiki.phtml?
> title=Dalecarlian_sound_samples

Indeed ;)

> Konrad, any comments on it?

Sounds good ;)

> /Sjuler
>
>
>
>
> --- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "akoddsson"
> <konrad_oddsson@...> wrote:
> > --- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, Berglaug Ásmundardóttir
> > <berglauga@...> wrote:
> > > Sjuler wrote: "As far as I know, the only sound which
Icelandic
> has
> > preserved better than all other Scandinavian dialects is the þ-
> sound
> > (like 'th' in English 'thing')."
> >
> > > Don't forget our lovely unvoiced resonants, which all you
> > scandinavians seem to have lost in some freak accident! ;)
> > >
> > > unvoiced r, l, m, n are fun to say!
> >
> > Lovely, I might add ;)
> >
> > > and wouldn't ð also be a 'preserved sound'?
> >
> > Yes, no doubt.
> >
> > > i'm well aware that icelandic isn't anything like old norse
was,
> > but really, it's mostly in the vowels and their surroundings
(that
> > would be lenght of syllables), the consonant changes are
minimal.
> >
> > I agree. ll, nn, g between vowels(segir), maybe final d/b
> (land/lamb)
> > and a few others. Not much of a change at all. However, as you
> point
> > out, the vowel-system is changed. I would say quite radically
so.
> If
> > we had a living speaker, however, I think we could learn it
without
> > having to learn the whole language over again.
> >
> > (hmm.. same as with english,
> > > really, their vowels are all messy nowadays.. compared to a
> > thousand years ago, at least)
> >
> > English is nowhere near the same tongue it was a thousand years
> ago.
> > The price of an empire, I suppose.
> >
> > I think what students need to understand about old pronunciation
is
> > this: there were many 'old norse' languages and just as many
ways
> of
> > pronouncing them. In Sweden, for instance, we had the Gautlandic
of
> > east and west, Swedish proper, Gutnish and others. In my
opinion,
> it
> > was the Old Gutnish that was the 'jewel of the east' -
> conservative
> > like the oldest West Norse, but with a radically differing
> phonology
> > and even usage. Danish was also markedly different in
> pronunciation,
> > and to some extent in usage and vocabulary, from West Norse. The
> way
> > I see it, one of the main advantages of old West Norse is that
it
> is
> > considered to have been very uniform (einsleit). Because Faroese
> and
> > Icelandic were once the same language as West Norwegian,
matching
> on
> > vocabulary and usage as well, we can get a fairly good idea of
how
> > it was pronounced by comparing the how these tongues are
pronounced
> > today and doing the math. Although it had the most complicated
> vowel-
> > system (through more mutations) and the least speakers of any
> nordic
> > tongue from the 9-10 centuries, West Norse is now by far the
> easiest
> > tongue to reconstruct, as there is a firm basis for comparison.
> This
> > is ironic, perhaps, given the numerical inferiority ;)
Fortunately,
> > West Norse was the most conservative branch, often markedly so.
> Only
> > Gutnish equals its antiquity. Shamefully, Gutnish was neglected,
> set
> > out to die and never used as a literary tongue. Our only book in
> the
> > tongue was written in the early 14th century. Fortunately, it is
> old
> > enough to give us some idea of the tongue in its golden age. I
> think
> > we are very lucky, on the other hand, that Old Icelandic was
used
> as
> > a literary tongue in the west as early as 1100-1130, when the
> tongue
> > was only slightly changed from its golden age.
> >
> > Vesið ér heil (pronun.: uesið êr hæil (short æ+i - between ei &
> ai ;)
> >
> > Konrad
> >
> > Regards,
> > Konrad
> >
> >
> > > Berglaug